BS3112 Literature Project Assessment Brief | RGU

What Knowledge and/or skills will I develop by Undertaking The Assessment?

• Develop critical thinking and writing skills, creativity, and original thought in argument development.
• Develop research skills in terms of accessing and disseminating high-quality, peer-reviewed academic literature resources to develop ideas and arguments for critical writing activities.
• Develop critical research skills, using established techniques that allow students to effectively and efficiently develop key search words in order to develop their chosen research topic.
• Develop an understanding of the research and supervision process, so that students can begin to prepare for the final year of their degree program and the thesis process.

Learning Outcomes of BS3112

On successful completion of the assessment, students will be able to achieve the following Learning Outcomes:

• Conduct a comprehensive subject-specific literature search
• Communicate effectively within a well-structured literature review
• Synthesise arguments and ideas in a manner that displays critical appraisal of their chosen topic
• Demonstrate the ability to work independently with minimal supervision

Assessment Brief

The purpose of this module assessment is for you to produce a written 3,500 (+10%) literature review on a specific topic relevant to your degree subject.

To produce your literature review on your allocated topic, you will be required to follow this process:

• Liaise with your allocated supervisor to agree the specific scope and purpose of your review.
• Identify appropriate literature to include in your review by undertaking a structured search (using relevant keywords and search strings) primarily in databases such as those available via the RGU Library website (e.g., Web of Science, Business Source Complete, Science Direct, and Emerald).
• Summarise the literature identified in your search.
• Analyse and synthesise the literature to draw out, for example, key themes, arguments or debates, and/or developments in the topic over time.
• Write up your literature review.

As a guide, you will need to cite between 30 to 40 literature sources in your review. Guidance on designing search strategies is provided in the lecture delivered by RGU Library (information available via the module Moodle page)

The lectures and tutorial activities in the module are designed to guide you through the above stages of producing your literature review.

Structuring your literature review:

Your literature review should be double-spaced and fully justified throughout and structured as follows:

• Title page.
• Abstract (maximum 200 words).
• Acknowledgements.
• Table of contents.
• List of tables and/or figures (if applicable).
• Introduction (including a clear indication of the purpose of the review, research issue/rationale/problem and an outline of the contents of the remainder of the review).
• Indication of the literature search strategy and development
• Analysis and synthesis of the literature. This section is the main body of the document and may be subdivided into subsections.
• Conclusions and/or recommendations.
• References.
• Appendices (if applicable).

Assessment Details:

You are required to submit a literature review, set to a highly professional standard. your work must meet the following requirements:

Formatting details:

• 1.5 or double line spacing and be within the coursework requirement word limit.
• Font size 12
• Arial or Verdana
• Document structure must be 'fully justified'
• Page numbers

Electronic copies will need to be submitted via DropBox on Moodle. This will be made available closer to the submission date.

Structure and Organisation: The structure of your assessment is an important factor in developing the outline of your work. The literature review must have a logical and consistent flow for sense-making, so follow the assessment criteria that is set out in the assessment brief. Pay attention to the themes and issues set out and check that you have included everything that you need to when you submit the work.

Written presentation: Your work should take the form of a written literature review of 3,500 words (+10%) which responds to the assessment question in turn. Use headings, diagrams, and brief tables if appropriate to illustrate points and to support your arguments. Ensure that these are relevant, based on your reading, and their significance to your argument is clear. Please include the word count on the cover page.

Referencing: It is important to demonstrate your reading of the subject area; to do this, you must cite and reference all reading materials throughout the literature review. The majority of these sources should be selected from the relevant peer-reviewed academic journals; industry and government reports (where appropriate) can also be used to support your argument, but the main content should come from academic literature. You should demonstrate your understanding of the research area by synthesising and critiquing the literature and using only direct quotations where necessary, such as the use of definitions. Do not simply reproduce diagrams or extensive general information from the textbooks or articles. You should assume that the supervisory team know the workings of any basic theoretical or analytical models you use and will allocate marks for the way you apply them to the question or to support a line of argument that helps you to answer the question. Remember that you must cite the sources of all information, whether this is theoretical, environmental or industry-specific. This includes any statistical and numerical information that you may use. It is important to cite correctly throughout to avoid a high plagiarism score on Turnitin, the recommended score should be around 20-30%.